They did it!

Just have to note that the entire island of Newfoundland (and the considerably bigger hunk of land that is Labrador) has gone bananas with joy because the men's curling team won the gold medal on Friday. Hooray! They were very endearing about it too -- Brad Gushue, attempting to throw the hammer into scoring position in the decisive sixth end, with six of his stones already in place to score, threw the seventh stone right through the house and out the other side. Six points in a end is already an unheard-of amount in international-caliber curling, but he could have had seven. He said to his teammates in apology for the missed shot, "Sorry guys -- couldn't get my heart rate down." Six, seven -- it didn't matter; it was in the bag.
Apparently the provincial govenment declared a half-day holiday so schoolkids could go home and watch the game; the Memorial University of Newfoundland (my alma mater) set up a live feed a screen in the Field House for the whole campus to come see, which they apparently did. A friend of my dad's, himself a come-from-away, wrote in bemusement: "There are apparently three important dates in the history of Nlfd.: 1497, when John Cabot landed and claimed the island for England; 1949, the date of Confederation with Canada, and 2006, when Gushue and the boys won the gold medal in curling."
I expect it's keeping them all warm through the 60 centimeters of snow that apparently has just fallen on St. John's.

In other news, I'm about to go give a colloquium talk in Madison, where MILC will be happening again this year. Watch for an important paper by M. Goose and R. Rabbit!